Media coverage

Apologies in advance for the use of strong language in response to an editorial in last Saturday’s Irish Independent.

The piece must surely qualify as the stupidest, most ill informed editorial penned in recent years.

The editorial, responding to the ‘sensational’ revelation that bankers tell lies, needs to be analysed line by line to expose the full ignorance of the idiot who penned it.

The level of ambiguity displayed by the banks in the lead-up to the €440bn bailout by those taxpayers was finally laid bare before the Dail Public Accounts committee.

Only now is it beginning to impinge on the brain of this idiot that Irish banks are ‘ambiguous’.

At this rate it will take him decades to realise that the Irish financial sector is infested with ruthless scumbags who are supported and protected by politicians and an incompetent ‘regularity’ system that does exactly as it’s told – to do whatever it takes to protect the interests of the scumbags.

It is these scumbags, in collusion with a corrupt political system, who are principally responsible for the destruction of our country and the strongest word the idiot can muster is ‘ambiguous’?

It smacked of an attitude and era which fostered recklessness and risk-taking beyond belief.

Obviously, the idiot believes that the ‘attitude’ and the ‘era’ are behind us.

He obviously believes the bullshit that spews from the mouths of Cowen and Lenihan about the country/economy turning corners.

He believes the bullshit that spews from the mouths of politicians and so called regulators that a new era of financial regulation has dawned, that Irish citizens are now safe from the thieving maws of the scumbags who infest the financial sector.

This is a typical, narrow brained, Irish reaction to unpleasant realities.

Brutal realities can be safely ignored if they’re consigned to the past. And because they’re in the past they don’t require any action so everybody can ‘go forward’ into the future full of light and happiness.

Never mind that the same ruthless bankers are still in place, never mind that the same corrupt political system is still in place, never mind that there is, in reality, no financial regulation whatsoever in this country, never mind all that.

The important thing to keep in mind is that, finally, bankers have been found to be ‘ambiguous’ – halleluiah.

We should not forget what was divulged this week. Banks bluffed in public about the state of their finances. They were, at the very least, disingenuous in the way they presented their financial health.

The idiot obviously believes that Irish bankers getting caught bluffing in public is an event of earthquake proportions, that nothing like it has ever happened before, that such a ‘crime’ must never be forgotten.

Clearly, the idiot has lived his entire life in a hole on the Skellig Islands

In doing so, they (the bankers) increased exponentially the amount of liability taxpayers have had to guarantee. They left our senior politicians and civil servants with few options.

The depth of ignorance displayed by this statement is deeply disturbing. The idiot seems to be totally unaware of the part played by incompetent and/or corrupt politicians and civil servants in the destruction of our country.

He believes, apparently, that all this came upon the politicians and civil servants suddenly, that they, like the idiot, were completely unaware, over many decades, of the rampant criminality common within the Irish financial sector.

It hasn’t yet occurred to the idiot that the total absence of effective financial regulation is no accident.

Perhaps he believes that the Soviet style secrecy laws that provide water tight protection for the scumbags just suddenly dropped out of the sky leaving our politicians and civil servants with few options.

Perhaps the idiot thinks that, despite decades of fraud and criminality within the financial sector, there’s nothing odd about the fact that not a single official or institution has ever faced a judge; that it was only in 2008, after beggaring the nation; that a financial institution came under investigation?

Perhaps the idiot even believes that the current investigation is an actual real investigation and not the standard Irish strategy of bluff, delay and obfuscation that will, ultimately, result in a non effective/irrelevant report years down the line.

What we have learned, and no doubt have yet to discover, about how some lending institutions behaved should never, ever be forgotten. Not this year, not next, never.

What we have learned has already been forgotten. Ansbacher, DIRT and dozens of other scams, costing Irish taxpayers countless millions, have all been forgotten.

How many times have we heard a politician/banker tell the nation – the past is another country, we must move forward, must make sure this never happens again – blah, blah, blah. Apparently, the idiot believes it all.

It is to our eternal credit as a nation that we have, despite a deep-seated anger, knuckled down and borne the inevitable.

The impression given here is that the people of Ireland, realising the seriousness of the situation, have united in a patriotic movement to save the nation.

This, of course, is total bullshit. Irish citizens, since independence, have sold their votes to the local chancer in return for small favours. The local chancer was more than happy to buy power so cheaply and use it to his own advantage.

This buying and selling of votes/democracy has corrupted the administration of the country and resulted in a politically ignorant electorate.

Irish citizens are incapable of voting, thinking or acting in the national interest, they act solely in self-interest or in the interest of a particular group of which they belong.

If Irish citizens were politically educated, if they were aware that it is they and not their corrupt leaders who hold power, the current government would have been thrown out of power in 2008 when disaster struck.

The greatest indictment of Irish democracy is that this government and in particular Fianna Fail are still in power, still working in their own interests at the expense of the nation and Irish citizens just lie down and take it.

Yet when we look in on ourselves, there is a source of great hope. And it is to ourselves we must look, because we are the ones carrying this country on our shoulders.

I don’t know what circles this idiot operates in but my sense of the country is not one of hope but despair.

Yes, ordinary citizens are carrying the country on their shoulders but it is not by choice. Citizens are being forced to suffer and pay for the corruption, incompetence, greed and arrogance of the ruling elite while that same ruling elite are busily insulating themselves against the disaster.

Bitter lessons have been learned.

What lessons? Could this idiot provide the nation with a single example of a lesson learned?

The tragedy of Ireland is that its people are oppressed by their political ignorance to the point of docility when, in this time of national crisis, the complete opposite is required.

The people of Ireland need to do what the people of Iceland did – eject from office all those responsible for betraying the nation.

They need to educate themselves on what real democracy is all about so that if a politician or banker ever threatens the national interest again they will quickly find themselves behind bars.

The very last thing the Irish people need is the self-indulgent; everything will be all right if we just ignore reality, kind of drivel contained in this editorial.

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The idiot